Let's not beat around the bush: Ernest Cline's Ready Player One is a circle jerk of male geek culture sustained over a grueling 400 pages.

On March 26, we'll see the release of the mega-budget blockbuster adaptation of this fanboy-favorite, courtesy of cinema's own champion of male geek culture, Steven Spielberg. There's nothing wrong with that — and early reviews have even been more positive than expected!

But that doesn't negate the criticisms against what Ready Player One represents — or rather, who fanboy culture tends to leave out.

There is an untapped treasure trove of iconic girlhood nostalgia just waiting to be exploited for the big screen. Yet Hollywood is sleeping on all of it, to instead give us yet another $200 million remember-when-Geek-culture-was-only-for-dudes nostalgia trip.

But the thing is: the books, shows, movies, cartoons, and toys of girlhood matter. Or, at the very least, they matter as much as Tron.

A viral tweet summed up a lot of women's frustrations with the inequalities exemplified by Ernest Cline's work. Demonstrating the difference in how we treat fangirl vs fanboy culture, Twitter user Hatalie imagined "Ready Player One Except With Girl Culture:"

That why everything from Transformers to The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles can get reimagined with CGI reverence — but the idea of a blockbuster live-action American Girl Dolls or The Powerpuff Girls franchise sounds laughable.

At the end of the day, we're honestly just bored.

We're all about elevating the idols of young adulthood to Spielberg-levels of respectability. But after six Transformers movies, two live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and a fucking Battleship (yes, the board game) movie, it's time we mixed things up.

And, hey, there's already signs of a shift. Hunger Games, Disney princess live-action movies, and the recent A Wrinkle in Time means Hollywood might finally be realizing that women will pay all the money for trips down memory lane, too.

But we've got a lot of lost time to make up for, and a lot of suggestions of more iconic girl culture that deserve its own blockbuster treatment:

1. An HBO The Baby-Sitters Club mini-series

Saoirse Ronan would *slay* in this movie

Image: Columbia Pictures And Becan Pictures

The original #girlbosses, Baby-Sitters Club is lowkey one of the most enduring feminist staples of girlhood. Long before Time's Up made pay equity a central cultural conversation, these young entrepreneurs were making business plans and getting fucking paid. Yes, there was a 1995 movie, but the time is ripe for a reboot (Hollywood loves those!). So we propose HBO takes this on to deliver a Big Little Lies for the younger generation.

2. A live-action Sailor Moon franchise

Sailor Moon was the '90s kid Saturday morning cartoon blast in the face of lady power. Aside from being a radical school girl who could turn into a magical goddamn moon princess, she also taught us about the enduring power of female friendship. We're envisioning something that's Sucker Punch levels of extra — only without all the gross male gaze-y bullshit.

3. Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle Trilogy

This Victorian-era fantasy trilogy is not only beautifully written, but one of the starkest YA portrayals of how girls must navigate complicated relationships to power, patriarchy, and friendship. We got pretty close to seeing them made into movies when Icon Productions licensed it in 2006. Then nothing happened... until the company recently relinquished the rights — leaving it totally open for grabs (are you listening, Warner Bros.?!)

4. A feminist reboot of Life-Size

We were all rooting for you, Tyra!

Image: disney

Who could forget Trya Banks' acting debut in 2000 as a Barbie brought to life. But while the original Disney movie played Eve's inability to perform Barbie's many jobs (doctor, astronaut, lawyer, etc) for laughs, there's a real metaphor there. There are endless possibilities in a feminist reboot that actually critiques the cultural messages we send young girls through marketing and toys. And, yeah, we know: a sequel was actually announced. But we want less made-for-TV Life-Size 2, and more of a wide theatrical release for Life-Size: The Reckoning.

5. The Song of the Lioness series, or anything from the Tortall Universe

Wouldn't you know it — here's another beloved, classic female-oriented YA series that almost got made into a movie, and then didn't. But for the love of god, if we can get an Eragon movie and two Percy Jackson movies made, then I think we can spare one measly Hollywood adaptation to Tamora Pierce. This book follows the story of Alanna of Trebond, a noble girl that disguises herself as a boy so she can train to become a knight.

6. A Daria movie that isn't a joke

Do we even need to defend this? The fake College Humor trailer for a live-action Daria starring Aubrey Plaza basically did the work for us. And it feels like a sin that no one's taken up the task of turning that dream into a reality. I mean, we can all agree that Daria is an icon for apathetic millennials everywhere, regardless of gender — right?

7. Skip the Bright sequel, and make Tithe instead

Bright already felt pretty much like a really bad, racist knock-off of Tithe, a well-respected YA novel that brought fairies into cityscapes. Holly Black's Tithe didn't originate the gritty urban fairytale genre, but it grounded it in girlhood experiences through protagonist Kaye Fierch. You can find Kaye struggling to reconcile with her musician mother's unconventional lifestyle, while also dealing with hangovers from a night out partying with the faery folk in their (literal) underground bars. Think Lord of the Rings if it was dropped into the Gossip Girl universe (and a lot less reductive.)

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